


of adaptation, evolution and marshmallows

by safestorms



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 15:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safestorms/pseuds/safestorms
Summary: As Peter and Lara Jean begin college, they figure out what adaptation and evolution means; that change doesn't always mean ending.It turns out that you can’t freeze time like Peter wanted.





	of adaptation, evolution and marshmallows

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of the movie so it doesn't take into account the events of the second and third book. But this fic draws upon themes that are in the books as well as Lara Jean's book characterization. She's still movie!Lara Jean but with some of book!Lara Jean. I love them both with my whole heart. Unbeta'ed so all mistakes are mine.

 The summer before they begin college,  Lara Jean and Peter make a new contract.

“Number one: let’s write each other letters, Peter.”

“Why? You know you can call me anytime, Covey.”

“Because it’ll be romantic,” she says, wildly gesturing with her hands and he’s looking at her all fond so she knows she’s probably doing one of those things with her face that he thinks is cute. She’s learned to use it to great effect sometimes like when she wants the last donut.

God, she’s going to miss waking up early at the crack of dawn on Monday mornings to get the donut special at the Corner Cafe just before the school week begins. It’d been _their_ thing during senior year. When she’d been stressed out with college admissions, she’d always had their Monday donut time to anchor her, the toasty warmness of the cafe enveloping her like a blanket. It’s funny the rituals you come to have with someone just by doing things with them week after week until it becomes a pattern you’re set in, a habit as natural as breathing.

Now when she smells cinnamon, she’ll always think of the cinnamon donuts Peter’d used to order, the way he’d laughed at how she’d get icing on her face and he’d wiped it off with his finger, licking it clean after, _like an indirect kiss_ , he’d say. Lara Jean’ll ask him for a real one outside later when they’re snuggled in his car, the early morning light leaking over the sky, tingeing it that pale shade of pink like spun sugar and cotton candy floss shading into a brilliant robin’s egg blue. She’ll always remember that Lara Jean fondly, her high school self on the cusp of adulthood, flush with youthfulness and that last bit of teenage girl innocence. Peter had tasted like cinnamon and sugar, promise and possibility all at once.

“Okay,” he relents because he always melts around her and it makes her feel powerful that she can do this to him without even trying.

“Just like when we began.” She doesn’t say because it’ll be familiar and she’ll need every bit of home she can get while she’s away from her family.

He stares at her intently. “I wish we could freeze time. Right here.”

“Number two,” she whispers. “Let’s always promise to be real.”

*.

Peter’s college is a two hour drive away - not insurmountable but still not _near._ Lara Jean should be _glad_ that _her_ boyfriend isn’t all the way across the country like other girls she knows. But then she doesn’t want to become _that_ girl; the girl who’s always waiting for her boyfriend, that Asian girl who’s defined by her white man. Or that girl who’s too naive to realize that high school relationships don’t survive college and miles of road.

“Let’s add this to the contract,” Lara Jean says the first week of college. “Number seven: Peter will drive down to see Lara Jean every weekend and if he can’t make it he will let her know in advance.”  
  
The thing about long distance she comes to find is that sometimes, in the moments in between, it’s hard to feel like they are real. She misses him like a physical ache and this is another loss to add to her pile.

But then Peter drives up to see her on the weekend and they snuggle up in her dorm bed, her nose buried in his neck and he’s as real as anything, all solid muscle mass and teenage-boy-almost-man-ness. And this between them _feels_ real. Is the real deal. Real love. The way Peter sees the real her and the way he lets her see the real him. He says, “You always smell so good, Lara Jean. You smell like marshmallows. Why do you smell like marshmallows?”

“What?” she laughs. “You say the most ridiculous things sometimes, Peter.”

“ _Are_ there marshmallows here?”

“No. I think you must just be craving them. Should I be jealous?”

He scoffs. “Of marshmallows? You’re sweeter than any marshmallow, Covey.”

“I haven’t had a marshmallow in ages...I don’t think...The last time I ate one was when my dad tried to get us to go camping with him. But I was nine and I held it over the fire for too long and it got so burned it tasted like ashes in my mouth.”

“Woah woah woah. You haven’t had a marshmallow recently, Covey?” he asks, tickling her. “Now this, _this_ is a crisis. Let me introduce you to the wonders of the marshmallow.” He stops, his expression going serious and she brings the tip of her nose to his, both of them breathing each other in and here here in the stillness of her room, under the covers with Peter she imagines that this is what it’s like to be safe and warm, something like marshmallow softness.

Peter insists on bringing her on a hunt for marshmallows later. She eats one and wonders out loud to him how she’d gone so long without eating marshmallows. Peter ducks his head, pleased. He's always so delighted to please her and it makes her feel warm all over because she doesn’t need marshmallows when she can have him, Peter Kavinsky, her marshmallow boy who makes her feel like there’s always sweetness to be found in life even though, _despite_ the bitter things. Like she'll never have to taste ashes in her mouth again. 

“Number eleven,” she murmurs as he presses kisses all over her face, the tip of her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids.  “Let’s always be sweet to each other Peter. Let’s always remind each other of the good things even when things are hard.” _Even when I don’t get to see you_ , she thinks. 

*

It turns out that you can’t freeze time like Peter wanted. Time moves on and things change. Both Peter and her know that innately, had felt it in their bones growing up. Loss has marked them both; her with her mom and Peter with his dad. Maybe it’s _because_ they’ve known loss so intimately, that they keep reaching for each other over and over again, transmuting change into evolution, adapting instead of saying goodbye.

They don’t _end_ but instead in college, their relationship shifts, evolves. Metamorphosizes. Not all change means endings.  Lara Jean says goodbye to high school them but that doesn’t mean that College PeterandLaraJean can’t be stronger and better.

During Christmas break, they both go back home and on Monday morning, Lara Jean wakes Peter up bright and early for their Monday donut ritual.

The Corner Cafe feels as toasty warm as it always has but this time it  feels different, _she_  feels different.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asks when he notices her fiddling with her packets of sugar.

“Nothing,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. She goes to tie it up into a ponytail but then she remembers; she’d gotten it cut the last day of class and it’s not long enough now.

“You’re doing that thing,” he says softly. “With your hair when you’re not feeling okay.”

“It’s just,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. “It feels different. Everything’s changed. Well not _everything_. You know. Kitty’s got a boyfriend now, can you believe? I caught her trying to sneak him into her room!”

“We haven’t changed. We’re still here,” he points out.

“Haven’t we?”

“Okay. Yes. We’re a bit different. But we’re not brand new. It’s still you and me, Covey.”

The way he’s smiling at her like she’s brighter than the sun makes her melt all over. “Yeah?” she asks, scrunching her nose up.

“Yeah,” he says, “you gonna break my heart Covey?” And his smile is no longer that of the most popular boy in school, Peter Kavinsky, but a Peter who’s a man now. But it’s still her Peter echoing what teenage him had said to her on a lacrosse field bathed in sunlight as she’d flung her arms around him and along with them her whole heart. And it’s just for her, all for her.

“So,” he continues. “How’d your story go for your writing class?”

Lara Jean breaks out into her own smile at this. “I’d never thought of being a writer before, Peter. I’d never imagined before college that me, Lara Jean, would be reading my writing out loud in front of other people for them to critique. Margot always used to say that the romance novels I read gave me unrealistic expectations. That they just put fantasies in my head. But I really believe that romance novels can make the world a better place. People need them, Peter. Because we all need to believe that we deserve happy endings.”

“What I’d do to have such a talented girlfriend? Leave some talent for the little people like me, Covey.”

Later outside in the parking lot, Lara Jean kisses him in his car, slow and sweet as he cradles her face with his hand. Kissing Peter here at the Corner Cafe with the ghost of high school them lingering doesn’t feel like a mourning or an elegy to their past selves. Still, after all this time, kissing Peter feels like the world opening up at her feet, the green of a lacrosse field spreading out beneath them endlessly.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed. Thank you so much for reading! All comments and kudos are appreciated! You can also message me on tumblr at safestorms.


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